ADVERTISING
Kenya’s Advertising Industry:
How To Move From Good To
Great
By Andrew Human
K
enya’s advertising industry is
thriving, generating twice as much
revenue as in Nigeria, but many
agencies are not paying enough attention
to trends in the digital sphere – which is
being driven mainly by rapid growth in
mobile internet access.
The fastest and most affordable
connectivity in Sub-Saharan Africa
enables Kenya to punch well above its
weight in the IT sector generally. The
country’s internet advertising market was
worth $120 million in 2016, compared to
$65 million in Nigeria and mobile revenue
accounted for 94% of the total.
The internet is expected to overtake
newspapers as the main source of
advertising revenue, although it will still
rank third behind radio and TV, according
to a 2017 survey by PwC. But it is set to
double in the five years leading to 2021,
with revenues from the industry overall
rising by 34%.
“The good thing is we are seeing
movement towards social media and
digital campaigns, but there is room for
more spending and more focus,” says
Monty Dhariwal, the MD at Express
DDB in Nairobi.
Ogilvy Africa grabbed the global limelight
in April last year with a personal ad on
the dating app Tinder, presenting the last
northern white male rhino (now late)
as ‘the World’s Most Eligible Bachelor’
in order to raise money for a breeding
programme at Ol Pejeta Conservancy in
Kenya.
Within a week, it had garnered two
million Tinder swipes in 190 countries
Research shows that advertisers allocated only
8% of their budgets to digital media in 2015,
while Kenyans spent 22% of their media
time online. Globally, the share of media
budgets allocated to digital channels is steadily
increasing – it rose to 43% last year from 38%
in 2015.
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and raised $160,000 dollars in donations.
It scooped up five awards at Africa’s
regional showcase, the Loeries, and three
awards at the Cannes Lions Festival, and
made headlines on top TV news outlets
including CNN, the BBC and Al-Jazeera.
Industry executives said the campaign was
a prime example of how Kenyan creatives
can successfully target digital and social
media. “We decided to take a different
approach – instead of making the subject
of rhino conservation sad and serious, we
made it fun,” says Ogilvy Africa CEO
Mathieu Plassard.
“It was a complete team effort – we’re
always looking at ways of innovating,
especially in the social and digital space,
bringing fresh ideas through the use of
technology.”
Research shows that advertisers allocated
only 8% of their budgets to digital media
in 2015, while Kenyans spent 22% of their
media time online. Globally, the share
of media budgets allocated to digital
channels is steadily increasing – it rose to
43% last year from 38% in 2015.
The time which people will spend on their
devices will of course increase – according
to the Connected Consumer Survey 2016,
half of Kenyans used the internet in 2016,
up from 45% in 2014 and well above the
African average of 25%. It estimates that